SlashGear Japan
Trolltech has released their “Greenphone” which is a phone that runs open source Linux. This phone includes developer tools to increase the phone’s capabilities, along with VMWare software. Using Mini SD and USB ports, this phone has huge potential, hardware wise.
With developer tools and smart phone applications built in, writing software for this phone gets to the point where almost everything is user controlled. Users can point their “apps” and download others’ and put them on their phone. Equipped with a touch screen and a 1100mAh battery, this thing rocks all the competition.
The hardware is great, but comes with a much deserved price tag. For $700, not many people see this as a phone, but as a whole new type of gadget. These things are tricky to type on, using the on screen keyboard, and can get very hot. These may become more widely spread if the price comes down.
Trolltech’s Greenphone: A reasonable first effort [Via: Linux.com]
2 Responses to “OpenSource Linux Phone is almost a Hit!”
EN December 31, 2006
Please keep in mind that the phones are geared towards developers. We have 2 of these at work (we develop handset software) and the UI feels very experimental. I don’t think people should expect it to be as refined as the typical commercially available cell phone (yet). I do think that there is a huge potential for open source handsets.
NeutralDavid Sterry June 26, 2007
After watching Walt Mossberg’s review of the iPhone I just started looking around for a linux based phone. I saw Trolltech’s which looks interesting but only works on GSM/GPRS. It appears there are really no phones available for CDMA and 1x that are linux based.
I think it’d be really cool if I could develop/download something like the Visual Voicemail feature on the iPhone. While I’m wishing for things, I’d like to be able to dock my phone to my computer screen, mouse and keyboard and use it for all those things that don’t require 20gb+ of a hard drive.
Neutral